Anyone really like to please others?

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Thanks for all of the valuable insight. This has been a really interesting thread!

I've also noticed that if I am really trying to please someone (or some people), and they generally aren't pleased, it really pains me. I mean, it bothers me almost to the point of obsession. I think the larger the effort, the worse this negative reaction can be.

I will have to be really aware of this in the future.

Yes, I definitely feel I have to prove myself to people! I´ve been this way all my life. Sometimes I´ve worked myself into the ground, trying to prove myself. There were times when I felt like I had to do something to justify my existence....

"I aim to please" is the name of a song i wrote the music for.. it has 2 guitar solos at the same time.. :p

That is another reason why I please as, well, especially to family and everyone who knows about my "label". By "showing" my talents and taking over in times of crisis is my way of showing them that they were wrong about me. I also show off in front of the agency(my group home/program) staff, and I prove to them that I am better than they are. Especially with my nurse, who thinks she know everything about my health, but when she makes a decision, she makes my health worse, but when I go behind her back and get help myself, I do a lot better and show her whose boss. I always see my intelligence from the Asperger's as a great trait for this. But you can also say the pleasing thing is to show that I am just as and/or more capable than NT's.

fiddlerpianist, I'll admit that over the many years now, I've went out of my way to be helpful unto others but, this sometimes has backfired upon me often resulting in me getting treated like some sort of unemancipated serf or such.. I'm not saying trying to please others is bad, just be cautious as there are people whom are quite willing to take an advantage of such that's all for, these days, I still try to be human unto others despite being tormented in the past..

ProfessorX

I'm not going to try to please people just to get them to like me, i'm not that desperate.
People can either accept me for who I am or not at all. I don't mind either way, I am who I am.

It's not about getting them to like me at all. For the most part I don't care. I think it's more about sharing my interests in a way which makes people "feel good" intrinsically. I see myself more as a conduit than a recipient of anything.

Yes I do like to please people, and I'm also pretty scared of pissing people off incase they'll end up not liking me.

This is a great thread
I'm not aspie but my 10 year old son J is. I've always had it in my head that for my son anyways, if he likes you he trys so hard to please you. He has one particular friend at school (another aspie) and when this boy doesn't want to play with my son, my son will pull out everything he can think of that has pleased this other boy in the past. It can be sad sometimes watching my boy make social mistakes in an effort to please someone else. He doesnt always get it wrong, but he always trys so hard.

On the other hand if J has no interest in you or the situation he see's no point in pleasing you. If that makes sense to you guys, however if it has been pointed out to him that he has diss pleased someone he truelly likes he is beside himself with grief.

I love to help others. The reason I do is a very selfish one. I do not enjoy doing anything myself. I don’t think I know how to enjoy or what joy is. When I look or know of someone that is or I have made happy I try to pretend that I am that person. It helps if I am familiar with that person. Only in this way can I enjoy something. I have noticed that “normal” people don’t like to eat or travel alone so I assume that others are also in some way like this, or is this just a form of socializing? For that matter is socializing just pretending to be someone? Is this an Aspie trait or a form of Asperger’s? Is there anyone else like me? I would really like to know.

Yep, same here.

And that's a loyalty NTs will never understand. In fact, they even get utterly creeped out by it.

Other than this thread, I had never heard the idea before that people with AS often try to relate to others by attempting to please them. What an eye opener! Is this one of those hidden "Aspie traits" that no one knows about?

I wonder if "trying to please others to a fault" should be one of those traits they use as basis for an AS diagnosis...

Only if it pleases me to do so.

ruveyn